CAA Teams Entrenched In Fight For Playoff Berths

Discuss the gravity each game has on the goal of reaching the postseason with their players or continue to take the business-as-usual, one-week-at-a-time approach and ignore all ramifications.

“That’s a great question and I don’t know if I have the perfect answer,” Delaware coach Danny Rocco said.

Rocco’s Blue Hens are one of seven league teams along with Towson, Stony Brook, Elon, Richmond, New Hampshire and Albany jammed in the center of the CAA standings. Those programs also all have three to five wins overall through Week 8 and are in a situation when one or two more losses could derail playoff hopes.

The lone unbeaten team in conference action is James Madison, winners of seven straight, and Villanova has six victories, giving the Dukes and Wildcats a clearer path toward advancing into December.

Six CAA squads earned berths to the postseason last year, but that was the first time in FCS history one conference sent that many teams to the playoffs. During the 10 previous years, the CAA averaged four of its teams in the postseason per year.

“We’ve always got to find a way to stay in the moment and go 1-0 on a Saturday afternoon,” New Hampshire interim coach Ricky Santos said. “That’s always our goal, but I think Coach Mac (longtime UNH coach Sean McDonnell, who took a leave of absence for health reasons before the season began) has always done a tremendous job of highlighting that November is championship month. This is where the focus really needs to tighten up for us.”

Of those seven middle-packed squads, only two have won or lost consecutive games entering this Saturday’s slate. Albany has back-to-back victories over Towson and Rhode Island, and Stony Brook, coming off its bye week, dropped decisions to JMU and New Hampshire.

“Everyone likes to talk about playoffs,” Albany coach Greg Gattuso said. “But we’re really focused on winning games, and at the end of the day we’re focused on winning as many as we can. And one of the things we’ve had trouble in the conference doing is stacking wins and I think that was the best part of Saturday for me in that we were able to win two conference games in a row.”

And for Gattuso, this campaign marks the first time since 2016 that his Great Danes are in contention for a playoff berth this late in a season.

Albany combined to win only three CAA games in 16 tries over the last two seasons, but quarterback Jeff Undercuffler’s four touchdown passes against Rhode Island helped Gattuso’s bunch to their third league win in four tries this year.

“Our kids understand that there’s no easy way into the playoffs,” Gattuso said. “We thought we were a legitimate playoff team a few years ago and we did not get in, so our kids understand that you’ve got to win as many games as you can and then you have to put it in the hands of some committee that you don’t really know.”

The scenario for Delaware isn’t much different from what Rocco and company dealt with in recent seasons. The Blue Hens were left out of the postseason with a 7-4 mark two years ago and reached the playoffs with the same record last year.

“I try to be as consistent as I can be from week to week,” Rocco said. “And one of the things I’ve been in the habit of doing during my beginning-of-the-week team meeting when I introduce the opponent, which I did do last night, I just post the conference standings.

“And you know there’s weeks where you look really good and there’s weeks you don’t look nearly as good, but it’s just a reality check. This is where we’re at. This is how the league stacks up. This is this week’s schedule in the league and I don’t spend a ton of time on it all because these young people are bright and smart and they recognize how tight it is right now within this league. And it’s extraordinary when you look at the scores week to week and the games left to be played.”

Delaware’s 16-10 win over New Hampshire, which wasn’t secure until the last throw from UNH quarterback Max Brosmer on the last play of the game fell incomplete, on Saturday was the 12th time in 21 CAA games this season an outcome was decided by eight points or fewer.

And three – JMU over Stony Brook, Villanova over Towson and Delaware over Rhode Island – of those 12 contests were finished in overtime.

Dukes coach Curt Cignetti, whose team looks destined for a sixth straight playoff appearance and has outscored opponents 323 to 135 this season, said his approach never changes.

“We’re kind of a one-play-at-a-time team,” Cignetti said. “And our focus is the opening kickoff Saturday when we get closer to game time. That stuff is all in the past and there’s always pressure here, expectations and standards to live up to, but we’ve been dealing with that from Day 1.”